


Falling For The Fallen

by raging_storm (orphan_account)



Series: Unfinished Works [3]
Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Blood, Bruises, Climbing, Injury, New York City, No Spoilers, YouTube, YouTuber Tyler, falling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-23 08:17:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12502980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/raging_storm
Summary: Josh watches this guy on YouTube, Fall3n.Fall3n climbs.Josh wonders if he'll kill himself one day.





	Falling For The Fallen

There's this guy on YouTube. Sometimes Josh watches him, sometimes he doesn't, but it's usually when he's bored, and he doesn't do it often because it gives him anxiety.

The guy's YouTube channel name is Fall3n. He's on the tall side, he always wears this mask over his face, according to himself, and he does stupid shit. That's the basis of his channel, the stupid shit.

Fall3n climbs stuff. Primarily buildings. High buildings. He attaches a GoPro to his head, claps his hands together, and goes for it. He's somewhere in a city, Josh knows, and he always finds some office building to climb. It's not fake. And when he reaches a high enough place, he turns around and looks down and laughs, while Josh turns away from the screen, because just looking at the people so far below gives him vertigo. 

Fall3n has never been arrested. He's been chased by cops, yelled at from windows, pointed at from below. They think he's a terrorist, a lunatic, a suicidal headcase. The worst time was when he was trapped at night, eleven stories up, and the cops were right below him in a cherry picker. But somehow, and Josh doesn't know because the video had cut out right then, he escaped. And he uploaded the video like nothing happened. It has over 8 million views. It's the most popular video on his channel. 

It should be easy for cops to identify Fall3n. He's tall, he has a recognizable frame, and tattoos. Lots of tattoos. A black arm band on his lower bicep, an inverted cross, some black lines on his wrist, he would be picked out instantly in any sort of criminal lineup. But he doesn't upload frequently, and he doesn't climb a lot, and he almost always hits a part of the city at least a mile away from his last destination. 

"They'll pee themselves before they climb up after me anyways," he said in one video as he climbed the side of a church one Saturday morning. It was his voice reveal. He isn't what Josh expected. He has a high-pitched voice, and it always sounds like he's sharing a secret joke with himself. 

"I'm gonna climb the side of the Chrysler Building one day," he said.

Fall3n's going to kill himself one day, and josh thinks he really deserves it.

-

Josh lives in a town just a few miles from New York City. He wonders if the infamous YouTuber whom he has not so secretly been watching 24/7 lives down there. Even though the buildings he climbs are generic officer buildings and could belong to any major city, Fall3n always drops hints about where he lives and it leads Josh to believe he lives down there.

"You gotta stop obsessing over the guy," Brendon said in the cafeteria one day. "He's just some annoying kid with a death wish."

That he is. 

Josh ignores him and plugs in his headphones to watch his newest video, "climbing a complex and other fun stuff." 

Brendon stabs his fork into his salad a little too hard.

-

He's in class when his phone pings with notifications. His English teacher is chalking something into the board, so Josh takes a moment to slide his phone out of his pocket and check the notification. 

Fall3n uploaded a new video. It's the first not stylized in all lowercase with a period at the end, and it's simply titled 'Face Reveal.' The thumbnail is a black silhouette of a head and shoulders with a little question mark on the face.

Josh's heart beats quicker. He knows it isn't a big deal, it's just some YouTube kid that climbs shit, but Josh has been watching this guy for a year now, and he has five million subscribers, and he's really damn curious what this guy looks like.

But he can't watch it. He's in class.

So he raises his hand. "Excuse me, can I use the bathroom?"

"Go," his teacher tells him.

He sprints to the bathroom. 

He locks himself in a stall. 

He watches the video.

The school Wi-Fi is shitty, but eventually the video loads in. It starts with Fall3n on a swing set somewhere, going higher and higher, and he talks about life and shit and what he has planned for the future in terms of videos, then finally jumps off the swing, flies through the air, and shoulder-rolls on the ground. He faces the camera towards him.

He is not what Josh envisioned.

He'd been envisioning some buff guy with a chiseled face and a tough demeanor. Something to match the quirky attitude and strong arms, because his voice was already so disappointing that the guy had to have some other impressive aspect.

But Fall3n is just a skinny kid with brown eyes and chapped lips upturned in a smile, and fluffy brown hair. 

He waves at the camera. "Hi," he says. "I'm Tyler."

"Tyler" goes on a bit more about how he's grateful for five million. He says stuff like "We did it", and other meaningful crap, but Josh isn't listening. He clicks out of the video and exits the bathroom, walking quietly back to class.

Tyler.

He now has a name and a face.

-

Fall3n uploads a video two weeks later entitled "running from the police." It's pretty short, just two minutes long with no editing, and the camera is mainly pointed at the ground. Josh can see Tyler's signature red shoes as they slap on the pavement. It's night, he can hear shouting behind him, but Tyler just laughs like resisting arrest is the funniest damn thing ever.

"Stupid," Josh says out loud.

The video ends as Tyler turns the camera to face the cop, and Josh gets an eyeful of a heavyset man in a uniform with a mustache.

The description of the video reads, "i hid in a trash can to escape him for fifteen minutes."

Josh turns off his phone.

The comment section is blowing up.

-

It's another two weeks before another video is uploaded. Josh is playing basketball with Brendon and Dallon after school, at Dallon's. They're all taking a water break when he gets the notification.

"What are you up to?" Brendon tries to look at his phone, but Josh angles it away. 

"It's nothing."

"Like hell it is. Who is it? Some girl? Guy?"

Josh doesn't want to tell him. He doesn't want to be made fun of because of his renewed obsession. "It's just a text from my mom," he tells Brendon. 

"Sure it is."

They play basketball for another half an hour. Then Josh walks home and watches Tyler's video.

Not once does he feel anxious. 

-

He's in New York City when he gets an Instagram notification. He's following Tyler's personal on Instagram, and it shows he's currently doing a live stream.

"Holy shit," Josh says out loud, causing passerby to stare, but he doesn't give a crap.

He opens his phone almost too eagerly, clicking on the live stream.

It's blurry at first, and there's a lot of noise and wind interfering, but Josh makes out two tanned hands gripping the ledges of some apartment building. He hears labored breathing, clicking, and holy hell, Tyler is climbing.

"If you're just tuning in, I'm climbing in NYC right now," Tyler says. "I won't say which building for privacy reasons and because I know there's a narc in this video right now."

Josh almost has a heart attack right then and there. 

In New York City. 

Fall3n is climbing in freaking New York City.

He knows it'll be impossible to find him. Tyler always picks remote spots to do the climbing, far out of people's way. He's already a meme, he's gone viral, he really does try to stay out of the spotlight as much as he can.

But this is New York City. It's too damn hard to disappear like that. 

And luck is on Josh's side.

As he rounds a corner and heads down a random little street, he comes to a darkened alleyway. And when he scans his eyes up the brick building at the end, he almost dies right there. 

A celebrity is climbing the building hand over hand.

"Holy shit," Josh whispers. He snaps a picture and sends it to Brendon.

 _no fucking way,_ Brendon says back immediately, because he knows what Josh is trying to imply.

He gets closer, his heart beating in his throat. He's nervous, but excited. It's like watching a show, his own personal show. He shouldn't be this excited. It's just a dude climbing a building, and Josh didn't even watch his videos that much until recently. 

But damn, he can say he saw this guy in action in person. No one else can say the same. Maybe he'll get an autograph. 

Tyler talks, presumably to those tuning in. It's definitely Tyler. Same tattoos, phone duct taped around his head in place of the GoPro for the purpose of the live stream, and what other guy would be climbing a building?

Josh is excited. Josh is pumped. 

He can't help himself. 

He steps forward as Fall3n reaches roughly twenty feet up, and calls, "Tyler? Holy crap, it's you!"

Tyler does a double-take. He fumbles his grip on the wall.

Josh watches him with wide eyes, unsure of what's going on.

His eyes widen as the scene unfolds before him. 

Tyler twisting around to see who yelled at him.

Tyler trying in vain to grab onto the wall as he lost his balance.

And Tyler fulfilling his YouTube name and falling, plummeting twenty feet to his death.  

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry if there are any blatant errors. Autocorrect is stupid, and I typed this on a whim, in the dark, on my phone. 
> 
> Stick with me here.


End file.
